An awesome creation

I say this a hundred times, but the thing about teaching is, the kids teach me all the time.  For the last few days we have had water in the sensory bins in my room.  This is nothing unusual.  Water is a pretty common sensory bin filler.  In it I placed many scoops, funnels, sponges, spoons, etc.  I also had a wheel in it (always fun for the first ten minutes), an old fashioned hand mixer,  and two turkey basters.

In this water table there are several things that they explored.  I added soap yesterday so they spent a lot of time creating many bubbles using the mixer and sponges to whisk up and squeeze out bubbles.  I added ice and they scooped and melted ice.  They also put the the funnel wide side up over the turkey baster end so that it extended the length.  

The Discovery

The greatest discovery, however, came a half an hour before lunch.  One little girl, we will call Brenda, was occupied with the idea of getting the turkey baster to squirt straight up in the air.  She couldn't because there was not enough water in the bulb to go up the length of the tube, not even to just pour and dribble over the sides.  Seeing this, a friend, we will call Georgia, attached a right side- up funnel to the upside down turkey baster and began pouring water into the funnel.  It took a while for her to realize that she had to squeeze the bulb of the turkey baster to get the water to run down into the baster and not remain in the funnel, but once she did it was fantastic.  They would shoot water  out the top of the funnel by squeezing the bulb of the turkey baster-  taking turns being the girl to stabilize the device, and the girl to squeeze the bulb.  They would refill and do it over and over, now adding another friend, Tina, to the mix.  It wasn't long before the entire room was watching these three girls.  Sometimes it shot out with a kind of coarse mist and other times just a thin stream.  Sometimes they would add too much water and it would just bubble over in the funnel.  Sometimes the water shot out only a few inches, other times it hit the ceiling (about 9 feet high)  and traveled a few feet across the room!

What they learned

So what was the point of this?  Was this just "another day" at play?  No, no, this was something big.  At lunch most days I go around the table and ask each child what they liked about today.  Every single child said that the thing they liked best today was when Brenda and Georgia were shooting the water out of their creation, even the ones who were just watching.  They learned something that day, they learned about the power of water, the power of suction, and the power of air.  They may not know these words yet, (although I probably mentioned them during the course of this activity) but when they encounter the word "suction" they have a concrete experience to attach it to.  

More than this, they learned about team work.  They could never have done this without an extra set of hands to stabilize the device.  

They also created, on their own, a simple machine; If that does not empower a child, if that does not build self esteem, if that does not inspire them to build and create, if that does not create passion for them, I don't know what does.  

This will be a lasting memory for many of these children, and sometimes positive memories that contain them doing GREAT things, is what it is all about.  

A lesson for you, a lesson for me

Like I said at the beginning, these children teach me all the time, and boy did I learn something today.  Three and a half years ago when I started teaching this discovery NEVER would have happened.  I would have been too wrapped up in getting them to keep the water in the sensory bins on the table.  Yes, I had a lot of cleaning today, and yes, one little girl slipped and fell, but that same girl refused ice because she wanted to get back to the activity as soon as she could.  They had so much fun today, and they worked so hard, and took turns and worked together.  I could never teach that by showing them how to do this, (though truthfully I never would have thought of using those two tools that way- my imagination is limited as an adult, not to mention my inclination to explore or try something that doesn't make "sense"), they taught themselves how to make it.  I also could not teach them something like the necessity of sharing and team work.  I could tell them "if you share, if you take turns, and if you work together, it would be more fun,"  but they never would have believed me, or really even internalized that statement.  Yet, they were sharing, not because they knew that "good" girls share, but because if they didn't share the other friend would stop helping, making it impossible to do, and because it is more fun to experience  something like that with a friend.  Joy shared is joy doubled, (I think that is how the saying goes),  and indeed the sheer delight those girls experienced was contagious.  I know beyond a doubt that this was better than any "teacher project" they could have done.  Preschoolers are not designed to sit at a desk and listen to a teacher teach AT them.  Sitting around and talking about water, about snow, about rain, is not really learning for them.  They have to see it, touch it, play with it, manipulate it, and do what perhaps some overly discerning adult would tell them not to do.  Children can harness potential, passion, and creativity in a way adults only dream they could.   

It is times like this that I wonder how many times I am holding them back from a major discovery by putting unnecessary limits and boundaries in their world.  By telling them not to do something or even by telling the TO DO something- am I hindering their natural instinct to learn and explore their environment?  More and more I realize that, as silly as it sounds, my role should be a "facilitator of learning, "  not a "teacher" in the traditional sense.  It is my job to know what they NEED to learn and to bring them the tools, the space, the time to learn it.  Everyday we as teachers, (or sometimes we as parents), have to create the environment and circumstances for children to learn.  These children teach me how to teach them everyday, and sometimes they teach me how to make a fountain/ shooter/ geyser/ out of a turkey baster and funnel.  

This is like a dream! (The real winter wonderland)

Today we FINALLY had a good day to go outside! With at least four inches of snow on the ground and the tropic temperature of 28 degrees, it was a perfect day to take on the big outdoors. 

Upon going outside and taking one trip down the hill Trisha said to me "this is like a dream!"  She's right, it was. 

One of the best things, I believe about school, is the little hill in the back. There is nothing better then sledding out there on a winter day.

Most of them could spend all day just sledding.  No snowmen, no snow balls, just sledding.  Many of us adults can remember sledding as a child and I personally cannot remember many things that were much more fun than that.

 They have become experts on creating trails for themselves (and I think we have only been sledding maybe ten times this winter).  Sledding on their stomachs was new for most of them today.  Many of them were too afraid of the risk previously and preferred to remain seated on our "sleds," (kitchen trays), to sliding on their stomachs.  

climbing up the hill on hands and knees 

What I love about sledding is also that it is an experiment in traction and friction for them.  They learn (slowly) not to climb up the trails that they have made not only because the trails are slippery to climb up, but also because when they climb up them it makes bumps in the trail and so they are slowed down when sledding down the hill.  

Here you can see them traveling in groups up the hill away from the trails, using their trays as ice picks to prevent them from sliding.

Eventually, after a half an hour of sledding down the big hill they decided to try the little hill that forms a miniature valley with the adjoining large hill.  

creating a trail

Without being asked, when friends noticed Trisha working on this interesting project, they rushed over to help and collaborate.

They were successful in creating a trail on the small hill, of course, but being so short, and requiring a lot more scooting and less sliding because of the very gradual incline, as soon as it was accomplished, they moved on. 

We did have a couple children who tried to mold snow in bowls and buckets, but the snow was not the right consistency to mold, so they only made a few bowl molds.  

Happy sledding. :-)

Thinking in and out of the box (day I)

Before starting this blog I want to make sure to give credit to Teacher Tom.  It is from his blog that I had the idea for this activity, although, as you can see, he did it on boxing day (December 26) making it twice as cool as doing it in January. 


Previous to Thursday, I collected several boxes, cardboard toilet paper and paper towel tubes, and some other odds and ends. There seemed to be no limit for the possibilities of the boxes.  

Two pairs of children made side by side houses in the dishwasher boxes, adding a smaller box to the front of each "house" for more space.  In the left house was inhabited by a girl and a boy, but the girl stayed in and the boy brought her anything she asked for in the "house" and kept other children from going in.  The pair of girls who inhabited the left side were very active; they went straight to work improving their home. 

Other children had very different designs for their boxes. 

One boy pushed this box up calling it a "skyscraper" but then changing mind, calling it the "leaning tower of pizza" instead when it was accidentally propped up on another box. 

He next realized that he could move the box and use it for a basketball hoop.

Other boys wasted no time in joining the game.  

Meanwhile, other children busied themselves coloring on various types of cardboard and styrofoam.  They loved the "squeeky" sound of markers on styrofoam, and the "bumping" sound of markers on corregated cardboard. 

Little Opal colored all of the really big letters on this box. While she colored she kept saying "not O, not O, not O."  I later heard her tell her friends she was going to color O's pink and all the other letters blue- there weren't any O's though.  

Many of the colored pieces of styrofoam were especially pretty.  

While the rest of the class was coloring, Tommy up-ended one of the "house" boxes, and decided he wanted to go down the top of the chimney (box) like Santa.

"Guys! Can someone help me get in this chimney?  I can't get in it."  No one came to help, so he made a new plan.

"Miss Elizabeth, I made steps and a railing to get into the box!" Unfortunately, they fell before he ever made it to the box and a few girls....

Figured out that you could just lift up the bottom of the box and climb under.  They claimed the "chimney" as a new place to color. (Whoever said boys were better at spacial problem solving than girls?)

 The boxes underwent several different arrangements and uses.  

One group found a way to to hold on to markers and toys that kept rolling away and getting lost under boxes and other materials.  

Another child took advantage of an empty box to "read a book" that she made out of a piece of folded cardboard. 

The children could have played at this activity for hours more than they did (which is why we did it again on Friday).  To help clean up they came up with the idea of sorting the smaller pieces into boxes- styrofoam, tubes, and small boxes- an excellent system.

I will upload pictures and write about the boxes on Friday soon!

Builders and Bulldozers

This past summer we had a woman, (who unfortunately I only knew as Miss Lynn), who came to our school to do Eat Well, Play Hard lessons with the children.  There was much of this program that was not really well suited to our threes and fours, but there was one game that she brought for the children to play that was perfect.  
This game is called "Builders and Bulldozers" and it is one of the children's favorite games.  It requires very little by way of materials and very little instruction.  All you need are several large plastic cups (we have 14 that we use).  First set cups upside down on the floor, spaced out across the entire room or playing area outside. We split the children up into two groups; the "bulldozers" knock the cups over and the "builders" put them back up the right way.  There are two rules: no "flying" cups, and you have to keep moving. We give the bulldozers a five second head start so that the builders have cups to build back up. They will usually play for about 10-20 minutes without getting remotely distracted, and we switch bulldozers with builders half way through.  

This game can be great for transitions and can also be great for days when all the children are antsy or grumpy.  I have never once (so far) had a child not want to play this game.

Sometimes when we play it's every child for his or herself, but other times they work as a pair or in teams trying to be the faster group.  In the past they have come up with a type of wave strategy where all the builders travel from area to area "building," or sometimes they assign each child an area of his or her own to demolish so that no area is left unattended at anytime.  Above you can see two children working together to build faster.  This pair discovered that it was faster to run and slide on their knees the build the cups back up rather than bend over! 

Have a great weekend, readers!